John Scofield - Country For Old Men (2016) [HDtracks]

When guitarist Bill Frisell first began a more decided focus on roots music, bluegrass and country & western music with the release of 1996's Nashville (Nonesuch), despite being largely very well-received, jazz purists rankled when the largely bluegrass/folk-informed album began to garner awards like Downbeat Magazine's Best Jazz Album of the Year. While Frisell's oftentimes Americana-tinged work has, in the ensuing years, become more fully accepted for the wonderful music that it is, fellow six-stringer John Scofield is unlikely to find himself the subject of such purist criticism with Country for Old Men. A play on the Coen Brothers' acclaimed 2007 film No Country for Old Men, a reference to the vast majority of source material on Scofield's first album of entirely non-original music since 2005's That's What I Say: John Scofield Plays The Music Of Ray Charles (Verve), and a not-so-subtle reminder that the 64 year-old guitarist isn't getting any younger, Country for Old Men may demonstrate his clear love of music from songwriters including George Jones, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton and Bob Wills, but it is still unequivocally a jazz record...one that may have a touch of twang but also swings mightily on nearly half of its twelve songs.